HotorNot’s New Mobile App

Ranking website Hot or Not has been reborn as a local dating app. The original version of Hot or Not was pretty racy in it’s circa-2001 day. Strangers could upload their digital photos (which were pretty hard to get a decade ago — I remember dropping off rolls of film in the drugstore and then took my photos to a computer lab scanner to email home pictures of my study abroad in 2005.), and let other strangers rate their looks. OkCupid is currently using a similar mechanic to allow users to thumbs up or thumbs down potential matches, based on looks alone.

The new mobile app for HotorNot offers the same photo rating but adds a dating component for actually meeting the users you’ve rated as hot. Users can find attractive people nearby, or find friends of friends. It’s interesting that dating app OKCupid added the rating component, while rating app HotorNot has added dating, flirting and meeting.

The relaunched HotorNot mobile app is now climbing the app store, reaching 13 for free apps, which is above Facebook. (For anyone saying that Facebook is finished, or that it’s all annoying posts from people we’d rather ignore, #13 is also above the insanely popular and profitable Candy Crush Saga, meaning more people want to rate strangers than pop candies. So, yeah, pretty impressive for a dating and flirting app.) Hot or Not is completing with popular dating apps like OKCupid and Tinder, as well as with smaller romance apps, like start-up Datini or Down, the revamp of Bang With Friends. There’s an Android version as well, which is #12 on Amazon apps for social networkers. HotorNot is also on Facebook, with over 14K fans using the app to rate and date.

When online matchmaking sites like Match.com got going, the excitement of internet dating came from connecting with potential partners in ways you might not be able to meet someone in a bar. Online daters might meet a partner over a shared hobby, or you might use a simple search to weed out potential dates with a dealbreaking viewpoint. It’s interesting to see online dating coming full circle, and becoming more and more like meeting a cute guy or girl in a bar, only without the actual bar part of it.  (Or possibly meeting a date from two different bars!)

This post has been sponsored by HotOrNot.